Hang On To Your Life And You Will Lose It

Day 10 of the 30 day Biblical Womanhood Challenge continues. This morning's message from Proverbs 31 was amazing: insightful, challenging, and encouraging!

"Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate." Prov. 31:31 (NIV)

I had never thought of it in eternal terms before, but it completely makes sense. This is a reference to our reward that awaits us at Heaven's gates, Judgement Day, when we are told "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now don't freak out, I am not suggesting it's our good works that get us into heaven. No. In fact, this portrait of a woman has been written in Scripture to reveal to me that there's no way I can fulfill this. Just as the law was given to Moses and the Israelites to show them their sin, to show them their need for redemption, their need to be completely dependant upon a Savior. If I embark on a mission to become this woman on my own strength, I'll fail this very hour. But because of the finished work at the cross of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit in me, God can begin to work in and through me.

So, just as rejecting this portrait of a woman is sinful, beginning a mission to become this woman on our strength is just as sinful.

Another thing on my heart lately, and brought out in today's message, is the need to hang on to our lives. The world, and even women in church circles, say women need "me time," we have the right to our own careers, we have the right to do what we want with the money we make, we have rights, rights, rights!! Hmmm...

What does Jesus say?

"Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” --Mark 8:34-38 (NLT)

There isn't even a hint that this Proverbs 31 Woman is miserable by laying down her own life and doing the Lord's work in her home and serving her family. She is fulfilling God's mandate for her life, and the joy of the Lord is her strength. She will receive a reward for the work her hands have faithfully done.

Day 6 of the 30 Day Make-Over

All I can say is, "Wow!" I have been so challenged and encouraged during the first 6 days of this Counter Culteral or Biblical Womanhood makeover. I'm not quite sure what it's called. I rarely practice repetative Scripture reading (reading the same passage every day for a series of days), but I have been so blessed in reading and re-reading Proverbs 31. Nancy Leigh DeMoss' insights and teaching on it have also been helpful in unpacking this passage.

Some of the topics we've touched on in the first 6 days have been:
Day 1 - A Biblical View of Womanhood
Day 2 - A Virtuous Woman
Day 3 - Modeling Humility
Day 4 - Committed to Marriage
Day 5 - A Godly Woman's Work
Day 6 - Working Joyfully

If you haven't yet started this study, go here to sign up for the daily emails from Revive Our Hearts.

The Journey Continues

So our application journey with Mission Aviation Fellowship continues. Our references were extremely efficient and helpful in returning their answers to MAF quickly! We are so thankful and appreciative of godly, close, and caring friendships. We are unnofficially officially onto the next step in the process which includes three different types of evaluations: technical, psychological, and medical. Once those have been completed, everything is reviewed again, I believe, and then we move onto candidacy if the Lord directs.

We are planning to complete the technical and psychological evaluations during the first two weeks of August. So our family will be taking a little road trip and spending some time at the MAF base in the US. Even though Rob is really the only one who needs to go down for the technical evaluation, I am excited to take the family and experience this part together. It turns out they were able to arrange to have both of our psychological tests done during the trip down for the technical evaluation.

I really sense God preparing our hearts as we continue to move forward in this direction. Despite always feeling as though we would raise our family here, where we are, I now am feeling more and more detached. In fact, at times I have felt I am not even living in "my" house with "my" things. I don't know if this makes any sense. But it is starting to become more and more difficult envisioning the future right here in the town we live in now. It is so strange, because I have always been such a stationary person. I have never had the desire to move around, or even leave familiarity. When I moved away from the town I grew up in, many people were surprised; however, I think I surprised myself most of all. What was I doing? I had always said I would never move away! Not too long after that, I met my future husband, we were married, and now our third child is on the way and we are thinking we are perfectly willing to move anywhere in the world God sends us. How did I go from being such a home-body to some sort of adventurer?

I can only give credit where it's due, and that's to Christ. Nothing in and of myself has the ability to make such adjustments in thinking and attitude. I am thrilled (sometimes terrified) to see how God is going to continue to mold and shape Rob and me wherever we end up, and that includes remaining right where we are if that is His will for our family.

Biblical Womanhood - 30 Day Challenge

In a culture where there is so much gender confusion and lack of knowing what the Bible says about our life and how we're to live, here's a challenge I'm encouraging women out there to embrace!

Many of you know how Nancy Leigh DeMoss' ministry, Revive Our Hearts, has encouraged me. Every now and then she hosts different challenges, and this one looks just as good as previous ones.

What is God's created design and mission for our lives?
How can we truly reflect the beauty and heart of Christ to those around us?
How can we pass the baton of truth on to the next generation?

So check out the True Woman Manifesto and the 30 day True Woman Make-over challenge that follows after it.

My Favorite Way To Drink Kefir

My daughter and I love to drink Kefir this way:

3/4 Cup Kefir

1/2 Banana

4 Ice Cubes

Blended until smooth.

Serves 2 small cups.

Simple, plain, and oh so good.

My First Homeschool Curriculum

This is one milestone that I thought I MUST blog about. Now, I don't believe preschool to be required or necessary, but I was just far too anxious to start "doing" something with my preschool aged daughter that I went and purchased Sonlight's 2nd preschool program. This one is geared for children 4-5 years of age, so I know we will enjoy this program for at least a couple of years!

Now, I did hesitate at the price at first. This 30 pound box of goodies cost me about $350USD, but considering we will use these great books over and over again, I could justify it as an investment worth making!

If you've never heard of Sonlight before, head over to their website and take a look. If you are looking for a solid literature based program with Biblical undertones and emphasis on teaching your children to have a Christian worldview, it's a must-see.

I think any typical homeschooling mom will agree with me when I say I was too excited about these books to wait until September to start! So Faith and I dove in right away, and we are happily enjoying Week 2 of the curriculum. We are taking it slowly, only really 'doing school' on afternoons or mornings where we need something extra to do together. It's been wonderful for her. And for me... not the most creative mommy in the world, it's given me ideas for things to do with her too. I especially like that it's not overwhelming. A 'big' day of school only takes about 45 minutes to an hour, and it's so nice to have something for her and I to do alone together.

The most exciting part about this so far is seeing her energy and enthusiasm in regards to Bible memory. A memory verse is introduced at the beginning of each week, and I am completely amazed at her ability to memorize. (I have to say it's also helping ME memorize Bible verses, which is getting more and more difficult these days.)

I'll just add this too... another big reason I chose Sonlight over other programs, is because they have done all the planning for me. I'll admit I like to plan and organize, but the last thing I wanted was to start having to hunt for books and put a curriculum together myself. I know if I'd been left to gather their material for myself, I probably would have looked at some of the titles and said, "I don't think we'd look at that book enough to make it worth while." Now that I have all the books in my house, I'm so glad I bought the whole lot. I see it forcing me to introduce things I'm not so interested in to my children as well!

Kefir Chai Frappe

Interesting blend of Chai Tea and Kefir - just another creative use for this healthful beverage!

Kefir Chai Frappe

Brew 1/2 cup Chai tea (2 tea bags in 1/2 cup boiling water for 7 minutes)

Sweeten as desired (I use 1 tsp sugar/honey)

Blend with 5-7 ice cubes until almost smooth

Add 1/2 cup of Kefir and lightly blend

My Kefir Grains

My kefir has finally graduated to a larger jar. This is very exciting for me because it means my grains are growing and I can make more kefir at a time!

My good friend was able to get a hold of some kefir grains from her friend, and so she shared some with me. That was about a month ago now, and it seems my grains are finally starting to grow as they should be.

If you have never heard of kefir than head over to this website and read all about it, or just google it and you'll get lots of information on it.

The short story: kefir is similar to yogurt. It is a fermented product jam packed with pro-biotics that actually colonize in your intestinal tract keeping you balanced and giving you a jump start on heading off any salmonella or E. Coli.

Other quick facts:

• It helps the digestion of lactose
• Easy to digest - good for babies and elderly
• Promotes healthy immune function
• It's rich in vitamins
• It may help to prevent breast cancer
• Rich in Tryptophen
• Relieves constipation - promotes regularity
• Protects urinary tract & prostate
• Controls cholesterol

Definitely do your own research too when thinking about adding different foods to your diet!

Have you ever had kefir? Honestly, I find it difficult to down on its own because of the strong flavor, but it's great in smoothies! In fact, you'd hardly even know you used kefir instead of yogurt or another milk product.

Rejoice In All Good Things the Lord Has Given to You

You shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord Your God has given to you and your household. --Deuteronomy 26:11

Now I am not claiming to be an expert on this subject. Honestly, I think God has yet to take me down some difficult roads, but He has been using small things in my life as training grounds to remind me to rejoice in His goodness and to dwell on His statutes.

Rejoicing and being thankful is not an option in Scripture. It's not something that we feel like doing when things are going fantastic in our life. It's not just our reaction to answered prayers or gifts. Thankfulness is an attitude that makes us as followers of Christ different. I have been trying to focus on the eternal lately. Gaining an eternal perspective in our lives often has an enormous effect on our attitude toward situations. Suddenly small irritations and frustrations become just that! Small! Insignificant. As Christians what ultimately matters? Our position in Christ and what's in store for us at the end of this race. With this in mind, how can we not be thankful and rejoice?

Another verse that came to mind when I was reading this morning was Proverbs 17:22, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."

Summer Break? New Blog Design!

Finally my desktop computer is up and running! For the past two weeks we have been waiting for a part to arrive in the mail becuase our CPU was over-heating and making the computer shut down.

I have been working on different layouts for this blog; tired of borrowing pre-made templates and background designs from others. Now, I think I have my own design, complete without any borrowed images.

In the next few days I hope to start blogging as normal. There have been exciting things happening around our household: school curriculum has arrived (my very first EVER), and I have MAF updates to write about.

For now, life goes on.... and we hope to have summer return! The clouds have settled upon us for the last few days and we're beginning to wonder where the summer weather went!

How is your summer going?

Prayer Journal Inspirations

In reading some other peoples' blogs this week, I was inspired to make my prayer journal a priority once again. It is such a powerful tool in my spiritual walk. Not only does a prayer journal help focus my devotional time, but it's a tangible way for me to see God working in my life and in others' lives!

As my daughter and other children grow, I want to instill in them the power of prayer, and I was excited to see how making a family prayer journal may help to encourage them in cultivating their own prayer life.

I fixed up my current spiritual journal and divided it into sections:
1. Immediate Family (Rob, Faith, Wes, baby)
2. Extended Family (Mother-in-law, my parents, siblings, Rob's siblings, Grandparents)
3. Church (Leadership & Pastor, General Body/Membership Requests
4. Friends
5. Unsaved/Needing Spiritual Growth contacts
6. Missions (Seeds of Hope & our Sponsor child, MAF & our endeavor, teams & individuals on missions trips from our local church)

I tried to locate pictures of each family member, including those family Christmas card photos we get in the mail each year, and taped a photo on each individual/family's page.

Now this prayer journal is not going to be filled with long written out prayers (as I've done in past). This one will be all point form or Scriptures pertaining to each person/family. I would like to try and pray through a page or two a day (or perhaps even a section a day). I will show answered prayer items by highlighting those points and writing in the date. Wouldn't it be neat to flip through this months/years later and see waves of yellow all through it?

Perhaps I've inspired/encouraged somebody out there to deepen their prayer life once again, or to start making it a priority. Remember, it doesn't matter what format we use, as long as we're communing with our heavenly Father.


If you're into scrapbooking or digital scrapbooking or just want to get those creative juices flowing in some way, you should check out Legacy Prayer Journals. This lady has put together kits of templates you can purchase and fill out yourself in a scrapbook theme way. Another neat little idea I found was a DIY {kid's prayer journal}.

Sunday Morning Psalm

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O Lord Almighty!

My sould yearns, even faints,

for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh cry out

for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may have her young--

a place near your alter,

O Lord Almighty, my King and

my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house;

they are ever praising you.

Blessed are those whose strength is

in you,

who have set their hearts on pilgrimige.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca,

they make it a place of springs;

the autumn rains also cover it with pools.

They go from strength to strength,

till each appears before God in Zion.

Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty;

listen to me, O God of Jacob.

Look upon our shield, O God;

look with favor on your anointed one.

Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper in

the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

For the Lord Go is a sun and shield;

the Lord bestows favor and honor;

no good thing does he withhold

from those whose walk is blameless.

O Lord Almighty,

blessed is the man who trusts in you.

-- Psalm 84